(Phys.org)—A team of researchers working at the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, in Scotland has developed a method for filming a laser beam as it bounces back and forth ...

Every odor has its own specific pattern which our noses are able to identify. Using a combination of proteins coupled to transistors, for the first time machines are able to differentiate smells that are ...

Unlike humans and great apes, rhesus monkeys don't realize when they look in a mirror that it is their own face looking back at them. But, according to a report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Jan ...

Cadillac said Thursday it will add high resolution streaming video to the function of a rearview mirror, so that the driver's vision and safety can be enhanced. The technology will debut on the 2016 Cadillac ...

(Phys.org)—World-class synchrotron and free-electron laser research facilities, such as Brookhaven National Laboratory's National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), are expected to yield some very exciting ...

Today in New Delhi, officials of the government of India signed documents establishing the country as a full partner in the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project. An international collaboration of institutions in the USA, ...

For the first time, chemists have successfully produced amino acid-like molecules that all have the same 'handedness', from simple building blocks and in a single test tube. Could this be how life started. ...

To catch individual laser photons that have travelled more than 600 miles from a satellite to Earth and back, the satellite's telescope needs to be perfectly positioned. Last week, engineers and technicians ...

Breaking carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bonds to alter existing molecules to create new ones is an increasingly important avenue for drug development. Of particular interest is mirror-image or "one-handed" compounds, ...

As in Alice's journey through the looking-glass to Wonderland, mirrors in the real world can sometimes behave in surprising and unexpected ways, including a new class of mirror that works like no other.

When stars are portrayed in media, they are often shown with long spikes emanating from them. Perhaps the most common example is that of the "star of Bethlehem" which, according to the story, led the wise ...

The National Science Foundation agreed on Friday to fund the construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project, the first observatory capable of scanning large swaths of night sky very quickly and ...

(Phys.org) —NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has reached another development milestone with the completion of static load testing of its primary mirror backplane support structure (PMBSS) moving the telescope ...

Mirror

A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection. This is different from other light-reflecting objects that do not preserve much of the original wave signal other than color and diffuse reflected light. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat surface. Curved mirrors are also used, to produce magnified or diminished images or focus light or simply distort the reflected image.

Mirrors are commonly used for personal grooming or admiring oneself (in which case the archaic term looking-glass is sometimes still used), decoration, and architecture. Mirrors are also used in scientific apparatus such as telescopes and lasers, cameras, and industrial machinery. Most mirrors are designed for visible light; however, mirrors designed for other types of waves or other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are also used, especially in non-optical instruments.